Windows only: ClickWhen lets you set up an automated mouse click to run on a window after a user-defined period of time.

Meaning what, exactly? Well, with ClickWhen you can, for example, set up your mouse to pause your iTunes music 30 minutes from now by telling it to click the iTunes pause button. In 30 minutes, ClickWhen will activate iTunes and click the pause button. This may sound like a pretty haphazard idea, but ClickWhen is actually pretty smart. After the jump, download ClickWhen and read a bit more on how it works.

ClickWhen

What it does: ClickWhen lets you create automated mouse clicks to be performed after a defined amount of time. I put ClickWhen together at the request of a reader who needed to automate a mouse click. It's somewhat of a silly application, but with a little imagination, it can be put to good use.

Usage: ClickWhen works in three simple steps. Because it's the most readily obvious use of ClickWhen I can think of, I've demonstrated how to use ClickWhen to pause iTunes after 30 minutes below:

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Keep in mind that ClickWhen can do the same sort of thing with virtually any application, so you're only limited by your imagination to use it. I really like the iTunes example because I like to leave music on when I leave a room, but it doesn't really need to stay on. With ClickWhen, I can just set up a timer to turn it off. Or on. Or whatever I want.

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Like I said above, ClickWhen is fairly smart. You can minimize or resize the application you want to click, and ClickWhen will be sure to restore the window and resize it to the size it was when you set up the mouse click so that you get the click you expected.

Now, Windows does come with the useful Windows Scheduled Tasks utility for automating stuff you want to do every day, so that's not really what this would be best for. However, if you want to quickly set up a very simple action, whether it's launching an application or pausing your digital music, it's a handy little tool.

Known Issues: Currently, ClickWhen will need clean access to your Windows desktop in order to click something on the desktop. That is, if a window is covering your desktop but you set up a desktop click, it will end up just clicking the application floating on top of the desktop (this is because you can't "restore" the desktop or put the desktop on top of other applications). One simple workaround would be the set up the click with an Explorer window that's showing your desktop folder. If there's enough demand, I can work in a fix for this... I wanted to push this out as quickly as I could for feedback, so fixing this minor issue is on my backburner.

Also, keep in mind when you're setting up mouse clicks that ClickWhen can't account for dynamic window content. Going back to the iTunes example: if you were to set up a double-click on an actual song to play it, it would only work if the library contents in the main iTunes screen hadn't scrolled to new territory.

Bug reports and feature requests: Aside from the quirks mentioned above, ClickWhen should generally work exactly as you expect it to. However, that doesn't mean it's bug-free. If you find a problem or you've got a suggestion for how I could improve ClickWhen, let's hear it in the comments. Newcomers, here's how to get a comment login.